How an ELL gets to be an ELL (how it's supposed to work)

Hello everyone.

I hope everyone has experienced at least some lovely moment with a student, found fulfillment in some fashion and/or was fortunate enough to encounter that holy grail known as the "teachable moment," (and even better, seize upon it)!

I thought it might be nice to back things up, given my absence from writing as well as the fact that there are shiny new faces in our classrooms at this time of year, like the "new car smell" that we don't wish to ever fade, so that we can learn about how an English Language Learner (ELL) earns his/her "label."

Note: I am writing from California, and this is how the legend goes...(or at least, what State Education Code says):

The Home Language Survey

You might not realize that the journey of a potential ELL begins as soon as the parent makes initial contact with a school and/or district, usually with the former. While practices vary from district to district, as part of the general initial registration process (new students), parents are handed a Home Language Survey, which typically looks something like this:

The practice is that when a non-English language is provided by parents as a response to ANY of the first three questions, the child can be considered a candidate to be an English Learner.

Again, the specifics of the next steps vary from district to district, but at some point, the student will be called in to take what is known as the California English Language Development Test or CELDT. Taken directly from the test's 2012-13 Information Guide:

In accordance with EC Section 60810(d), one of the purposes of the CELDT is to identify students who are limited English proficient (LEP) [the archaic designation for ELLs]. Education Code, Section 306(a) defines an LEP student as a student who does not speak English or whose native language is not English and who is not currently able to perform ordinary classroom work in English.

 CELDT

 It is the results of the CELDT which have the final say in determining whether a child will be designated an ELL or not.

For the sake of simplicity, the average of the child's scores are taken for each skill section tested: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing and scaled. They fall within one of five levels of English proficiency: Beginning, Early Intermediate, Intermediate, Early Advanced and Advanced. The first three levels represent a true English Learner and will be designated as such. Levels four and five represent levels comparable to a native speaker and denote an Initially Fluent English Proficient student (IFEP).

In sum, this is the expected/ideal scenario:

So, there you have it, as far as the identification of English Learners is concerned, this is the bulk of the story. OF course, as with everything policy and law, implementation is in the eye of the beholder and some districts' practices may differ from this expected practice. It is at their own risk, for they will be audited by the State on a regular basis.

That's enough for today! It was a heavy topic to start anew, but one that many teachers are not aware of.

Thanks for reading!